“The writerly brilliance—the terse dark poetry—of this debut book explodes from every page.Yet Kim Cross is too much of a writer to let mere masterful writing suffice. She has enlistedher sentences in the service of her tremendous reportorial mission: to recover and make senseof the thousands of fragmentary incidents, images, voices, and glimpses of human character ennobled by loss and imminent death—the sum and substance of the most catastrophicmass-tornado attack in recorded American history. This young writer has done the impossible:she has out-written apocalypse. A new star has appeared in our literary sky.” - Ron Powers, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and co-author of Flags of Our Fathe

"A splendid reporter, and even better writer, Kim Cross has taken a catastrophic 'act of God'that seemed to beggar description as well as explanation and rendered itas shimmering molecules of feeling and meaning. An outstanding debut." - Diane McWhorter, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Carry Me Home

"Set to be among the most influential titles of 2015... Painstakingly reported andtold through a voice of hope, Kim’s literary debut honors the Southern traditionof storytelling and presents her as a new voice for the South."- Southern Living, 50 People Who Are Changing the South in 2015

“Armchair storm chasers will find much to savor in this grippingly detailed,real-time chronicle of nature gone awry.” - Kirkus Reviews

“Cross takes us up close to a force of nature with a poetic, soul-searing narrativethat keeps you turning page after page.” - Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Emmy- and Peabody-Award winning journalist and author of To the Mountaintop

"Whether you live in tornado country of not, everyone should read this book!" - Fannie Flagg, author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe

“[Kim Cross] shows us how ordinary people in the worst-hit areas discovered what theyand their communities were made of as the sky fell around them.” - Winston Groom, author of Forrest Gump

"There are no easy chapters in this book. But there's a shit-ton of hope by the end of it."- Generation G Books

"...the culmination of more than a year of research, hours of interviews and phone calls and video, hundreds of pages of Facebook posts and texts and chat room messages..."— AL.com

"The book wasn’t merely about three days of storms, it was about the redemption that followed."— The Tennessean

"...a well-researched work that serves as both a reporter's factual account of a tragicand historic weather event and a storyteller's chronicle that conveys the emotionaland personal tolls it took on Alabama."— Clarion-Ledger